Stability/Instability in the Alcoholic Marriage: The Interrelationships Between Course of Alcoholism,Family Process,and Marital Outcome

Thirty-one alcoholic families who were originally studied in home, multiple-family group, and laboratory settings were reassessed two years later to determine course of alcoholism and degree of marital stability. This paper presents data comparing baseline alcohol consumption and family interactional behavior at home with subsequent alcoholism and marital stability outcomes. Findings suggest that the relative degree of stability/instability in these marriages is best understood as a function of the “goodness-of-fit” between the relative predictability of drinking on the part of the identified alcoholic and the family's characteristic pattern of interactional behavior at home.     

Moral Reasons: Internal and External1

The view defended is one sense externalist on the relation between moral reasons and motivation: A's having a moral reason to do X does not necessarily imply that A has a motivation that would support A's doing X via some appropriate deliberative route. However, it is in another sense externalist in holding that there are the kind of moral reasons there are only if the relevant motivational capacities are generally present in human beings, if not in all individuals. The process of socialization is an attempt to embed the recognition of what we have moral reason to do in the intentional content of one's feelings. E.g., learning that about others' suffering embeds their suffering as a reason to help in the intentional content of incipient compassionate feelings. This endows the reason with motivational efficacy while conferring further direction to the feelings in ways that shape us for social cooperation.     

How Much Is Enough? The Caseload Problem

Six critical variables of the caseload problem are proposed and defined. A matrix is used to determine the ability of an employability development team to carry a greater or lesser caseload. Examples of the application of the matrix to a number of different settings are offered.